Hurricanes' damage to poor 'beyond imagining'
From: Psalm 110 (Gods_Fist_at_sbcglobal.net)
Date: 09/29/04
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Date: 28 Sep 2004 18:36:49 -0700
Hurricanes' damage to poor 'beyond imagining'
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/weather/orl-bk-jeannepm-092804,0,4665754.story?coll=orl-home-headlines
Hurricanes' damage to poor 'beyond imagining'
By Michael Muskal and Jon-Thor Dahlburg | Los Angeles Times Staff
Writers
Posted September 28, 2004, 12:49 PM EDT
Downgraded to a tropical depression, Jeanne took its heavy rains north
this morning, leaving a record cleanup after its destructive visit
across the Southeast.
Florida officials estimated that Jeanne added at least $6 billion in
insured losses to nearly $12 billion estimated from Charley, Frances
and Ivan, which hit earlier this hurricane season. That surpasses the
$15 billion in damage caused in Florida by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
At least 80 deaths were reported and millions of people were without
electricity.
The 2004 Atlantic hurricane season has been one of the busiest and
most destructive in history, according to the Federal Emergency
Management Agency. While late in starting, there have been 12 named
storms resulting in 18 federal disaster declarations covering 11
states and Puerto Rico, the agency said.
The federal emergency agency has more than 5,000 of its workers spread
across 15
states. Nearly 3,800 National Guardsmen were providing security. In
his third request, President Bush has asked Congress for an additional
$7.1 billion in aid. That brings the possible funds to at least $12.2
billion.
As Florida and Georgia struggle to clean up, the storm moved through
Virginia and was expected to head into Pennsylvannia and New York. It
is still carrying heavy rains and officials posted flash flood
warnings across the route.
Florida is the first state to get pounded by four hurricanes in one
season since Texas in 1886. Relief workers have passed out at least 16
million meals, 9 million gallons of water and nearly 59 million pounds
of ice over the course of the four storms, state officials said.
"My home is wet, my clothes were destroyed, my roof is gradually
caving in," said Alana Wyche from Avenue D in Fort Pierce, Fla. On
Monday morning, the 20-year-old renter was tossing out shoes before
throwing away her furniture, which without electricity to run air
conditioners was moldering in the heat.
A child-care aide, Wyche had been without a paycheck for three weeks:
Her workplace was damaged in Hurricane Frances and declared unsafe.
All she had to look forward to now, Wyche said, was government aid. "I
called FEMA," she said. "They said they are going to help me."
In Florida's devastating year of four hurricanes, the owners of
beachfront estates, yachts, golf course apartments and middle-class
homes have taken a material beating totaling billions of dollars --
not to mention the damage done to the tourism and agriculture
industries.
But "the impact that we are seeing on the poor, it's just beyond
imagining," said Margaret O'Brien-Molina, a public information officer
for the American Red Cross.
"These people were poor before, but there were shelters, places for
them to go,"
O'Brien-Molina said from a shelter in Daytona Beach. "Now there is
nothing."
"A lot of people who were living from paycheck to paycheck now are in
a world of
problems," said Paula Lewis, Democratic chairwoman of the St. Lucie
County Board of Commissioners. "Not that I don't feel sorry for people
who may have lost properties on the beach. But they could probably
afford it. There are other people out there, I don't know how they are
functioning."
About 50 miles north of Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast, Fort Pierce
boasts one of Florida's oldest black settlements, with Avenue D a main
commercial thoroughfare. In recent years, the neighborhood also has
attracted poor whites and Mexican and Haitian immigrants. There are
numerous houses of worship, some of which sustained significant damage
in the hurricanes, as well as multiple storefronts where, police and
residents say, dealers hawk cocaine and marijuana.
Outside, some of the blue tarps put on homes damaged by Frances lay on
the pavement or were wrapped around tree trunks, evidence of the
additional calamity visited by Jeanne. Street signs and palm trees
were down, and shingles and tar paper that had peeled off roofs
littered the street.
"It's going to be a tremendously hard time for a while to recover,"
said Bernard
Harrell, 64, owner of a small grocery store on Avenue D.
Harrell said the government might offer assistance, but he was
skeptical it would fully compensate people on Avenue D for their
losses.
"Sure, FEMA is going to give a check for a while, but how long?" Some
people, Harrell said, probably wouldn't make good use of the checks
anyway.
An acquaintance, he said, already was sent $500 by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency to fix damage to her house from Frances,
but spent the money to rent a motel room and throw a party for
friends.
And as a result of the hurricanes, tens of thousands of Floridians no
longer have jobs: 16,474 filed disaster-related unemployment claims
after Charley; 22,948 after Frances and 4,206 after Ivan, said Warren
May, director of communications for the state Agency for Workplace
Innovation.
On Monday, the agency was beginning to accept jobless claims from
Jeanne, the hurricane that struck before midnight Saturday.
"Clearly these storms have had a tremendous impact," May said from
Tallahassee.
The recent succession of storms also has trampled Florida's citrus
industry, which traditionally has provided jobs for many African
American residents of Fort Pierce. Half the state's grapefruit crop, a
specialty of the groves in this part of Florida, may have been
destroyed. To find temporary jobs for fruit pickers and other workers,
Lewis said, the state already had been in contact with local growers.
The situation could be even more dire for Florida's migrant
agricultural laborers, many of whom are in the country illegally.
"We have gone into affected areas with bilingual workers on our
trucks, trying to get out the message that people don't have to worry
about their immigration status if they need help," said Carol Lang,
Florida director of social services for the Salvation Army in Tampa.
"These people were living in tin shacks," Lang said. "Now they have
nothing -- and no jobs. We have given them food, blankets, hygiene
kits, tried to find them shelter. We have gotten so many letters of
thanks from immigrants. That population has actually responded to our
efforts more than any other."
Jacob Dipietre, a spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush, said that the state was
"doing
everything we can" to assist everyone affected by the hurricanes,
without regard to income level.
"We are working on providing the basics -- power, water, food --
trying to get back to some kind of normalcy," Dipietre said. "The
governor is traveling all over the state today, checking on people,
making sure they have what they need. So many programs are involved.
People can file disaster unemployment claims, the Department of
Children and Families has emergency food stamp programs. There are
just so many things we are doing for all the people affected by these
storms."
During a visit to Fort Pierce on Sunday, Gov. Bush said the state must
construct more affordable housing units to replace those left
uninhabitable by the hurricanes.
But there was a feeling that the economics of fast-growing Florida may
conspire against that.
Some farmland devastated by the storms "will never be put back in
production again. The land will go to developers for condos for people
who can afford them," O'Brien-Molina said. "What will happen to the
people who live off that land now? Where will they go?"
She has been in Florida since Hurricane Charley struck, she said, "and
the level of need, the way these problems are going to grow, the
amount of money needed -- it's just unnerving."
And with many schools closed because of hurricane damage,
O'Brien-Molina said, some lower-income people might have to stay home
from their jobs to take care of their children.
In Fort Pierce and the rest of St. Lucie County, officials urgently
needed to find housing for up to 400 people -- most of them poor --
who lost their homes in this year's storms, Red Cross official Ron
Ellingsworth said.
"A lot of the low-income housing has been destroyed," Ellingsworth
said. "It wasn't built to hurricane standards."
Three weeks after Frances struck, the Red Cross official noted, he was
still providing shelter for 120 people who had no other place to live.
The lack of public transportation since Jeanne was keeping Lanetta
Ellis in her Avenue D apartment with her daughters, ages 2 and 3.
That's where the single mother rode out the storm, as red roof tiles
smashed to the ground, because she couldn't carry her girls, food and
clothing to get a bus for a shelter.
"It was terrible, there was a lot of water, a lot of leakage, and the
roof caved in," the 22-year-old said.
Her daughters saw the storm as a thrilling indoor camping trip,
enjoying the cold ravioli and Vienna sausages their mother served. But
with the power still out two days later, the girls were complaining
that they couldn't watch cartoons.
Ellis, studying to be a certified nurse's assistant, didn't go to
school Monday.
Classes had been suspended because there was no power. She washed her
clothes in the kitchen sink and wished aloud that life would soon get
back to normal.
"Hopefully before Friday, before the supplies I bought for the
hurricane run out."
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